Geopolitics in the changing geography of the Baltic Sea Region: the challenges of climate change

ABSTRACT

This article outlines the possible geopolitical consequences of climate change in the Baltic Sea Region. In order to do so it also presents a framework that understands geopolitics as a dynamic rather than static field of study. One of the most important factors that determine the character of the impact of climate change on geopolitics in the Baltic Sea Region will be the kind of relations that exist between the littoral states. Still, modern societies are buffered from changes in local natural systems by the world economy and the global trade in foodstuffs. This makes them vulnerable, to different degrees, to the effects of climate change in other parts of the world. If, or when, the latter lose their capacity to produce surplus for export, then climate change is likely to affect the welfare and geopolitical relations of the Baltic Sea Region states.

KEYWORDS:

• Anthorpocene
• Baltic Sea
• climate change
• geopolitics
• environmental security

Introduction

Climate change is the most momentous transformation of the earth in a very long time. It is but one of the many human-induced transformations of the planet that are fundamentally re-shaping it. Some researchers even talk of a new geological era in earth’s history, the Anthropocene, which is replacing the previous one, the Holocene (Smith & Zeder, 2013; Crutzen, 2006; Steffen, Crutzen, & McNeill, 2007). Climate change will alter the conditions for natural systems such as ecosystems, habitats and animal species but also the conditions for social systems, i.e. societies and how they interact with each other. In the context of geopolitical debates and future threats, it is necessary to consider how the changing character of some of the fundamental elements of geography will affect politics.

The Baltic Sea Region is not among the areas of the world that will be hardest struck by climate change effects. Nevertheless, it will be affected in two main ways. First, it will be affected by changes in mean temperatures, extreme variations in precipitation, rising sea levels and storm surges. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, it will be affected by the socio-political expectations and interpretations of what climate change means for the countries of the region. Ecological systems have a profound impact on societies but these effects are always mediated by geography and the political and social systems. This article will deal with the interplay between ecology and societies in the Baltic Sea Region and address a potential trajectory towards geopolitical conflict triggered by climate change.

Although the basic mechanisms behind global warming were discovered in the nineteenth century by Svante Arrhenius, global warming and ensuing changes in the world’s geography were not considered by geopolitical theorists until very recently (Barnett, 2007; Bošnjaković, 2012; Dalby, 2013; Haldén, 2007; Rodhe, Charlson, & Crawford, 1997). Climate change is likely to change our understanding of how geography influences or determines politics. Climate change may even change geography to the extent that it shapes how politics may be used to affect changes in geography. This contribution argues that effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea Region will stem from both changes in natural systems and political developments. The aims of this article are to outline possible effects of climate change on the geopolitics of the Baltic Sea Region.

The article proceeds in the following way: The next section starts with a brief introduction to climate change. This is followed by a section that conceptualizes geopolitics as a dynamic field that changes both with technological innovations and with changes in natural systems. The section thereafter outlines a theoretical framework to help us to understand how changes in natural systems can affect social systems of the kind of political actions that may follow upon climate change. Finally some probable effects of climate change are discussed that can be expected in the Baltic Sea Region and specifically in the Eastern part and notably in Russia.

The dynamics and effects of climate change

Climate change is a portmanteau concept for a wide range of effects on natural systems caused by global warming. Global warming, in turn, is a process largely caused by the increasing share of CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere. Since the start of the industrial era in the eighteenth century mankind has released more CO₂ into the atmosphere and this process has accelerated strongly during the twentieth century. The increased amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere prevents heat from flowing from the earth into the stratosphere and beyond. Hence the popular name “the greenhouse effect”. The principal effect is that the Earth’s temperature is getting warmer. Sixteen of the seventeenth warmest years on record took place after 2001 (Northon, 2017).

It is very difficult to predict how the climate will change on earth in general or in specific regions. Scientists therefore rely on meteorological scenarios and models and there are considerable differences between scenarios. The medium scenario presented by the Baltic Earth Assessment of Climate Change indicates that the mean temperatures of the Baltic Sea Region will increase by roughly 4°C in the winter but not during the summer. The “high” scenario, however, indicates 5–6°C warmer climate during the winter and 4.5°C during the summer. In this scenario, Central Europe will be 6.0°C degrees warmer during the summer (Von Storch, Omstedt, Pawlak, & Reckermann, 2015, p. 13).

A warmer climate generates five main effects (see below, for impacts in the Baltic Sea Region):

1. Increased volatility in all weather systems. Indeed, we are already witnessing more and worse storms that destroy ecosystems, buildings and societies. Weather systems are gradually becoming more chaotic and unpredictable. This causes problems for human activities, notably agriculture and horticulture, but also for a number of animal and plant species that have difficulties coping with sudden shifts in the weather and indeed in seasons.

2. Increased mean temperatures will sabotage a wide range of ecosystems, including the habitats and bodies of a large number of species. Many species will find it difficult to adapt to higher temperatures, either directly or indirectly. A direct effect can be problems for cold-water species to survive in a warmer sea. An indirect effect can be problems for a mammal or bird species to find food if its main sources of sustenance have died out or been replaced by invasive species better suited to a warmer climate. These processes accelerate the current process of mass extinction of species driven by mankind’s hunt for resources and exploitation of ecosystems.

3. There will be shifts in precipitation patterns. Generally speaking, dry areas will get less precipitation and wet areas will get more. This leads to droughts and floods that upset ecosystems and human societies.

4. An increased mean temperatures cause the polar ice caps to melt. This in turn causes sea level rise that in the medium and long run will flood low-lying (and eventually not so low-lying) areas. The impact of sea level rise in the Baltic Sea is difficult to predict but globally, climate models suggest an increase of about 30 cm (Hünicke et al., 2015, p. 168). Reduced polar ice caps also decrease the Earth’s capacity to reflect sunlight, the so-called albedo effect, which in turn makes the atmosphere even warmer, thus exacerbating global warming (Hansen & Nazarenko, 2004).

5. Increased temperatures melt the huge belt of permafrost covering much of northern Russia (and Canada). Not only does this create problems in urban areas, such as the collapse of large infrastructure like houses or roads, in the affected areas, it also releases vast quantities of methane – a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – into the atmosphere that furthermore exacerbates global warming (Whiteman, Hope, & Wadhams, 2013).

These are the main effects of climate change but the models developed by meteorologists and climate scientists indicate that there are significant degrees of difference in the severity of the effects that we will experience in the coming decades. An increase in mean temperatures of about 2°C has been considered acceptable, but still hazardous, by the IPCC, the United Nations-sponsored panel on climate change. Larger increases in mean temperatures will have a more severe impact (New, Liverman, Schroder, & Andersson, 2011). The big question, for which there is so far neither a satisfactory answer nor even a satisfactory framework with which to analyse the problem, is whether climate change effects can exceed the buffering capacity of industrialized societies and the world economy. In pre-industrial times harvest failure due to bad weather such as drought, severe rain and strong variations in temperature frequently led to high food prices and starvation in Europe. The effects were disastrous because there was no world market for grain, low degrees of monetization in the economy as people employed in subsistence farming could not buy any food. Little or no government (either domestic or international) interventions were forthcoming to assist in times of starvation.

Geopolitics, climate change and technology

Theorists of geopolitics have been divided along three dimensions: first, whether they view the physical world as static or dynamic; second, whether geography determines human actions and third, what the appropriate political responses are to geographical conditions. Some have expressed a belief that geopolitics is the study of how geographic constants are determining factors upon politics. Mackinder’s much popularized idea that whoever controls the “world island”, essentially consisting of inner Asia, may exercise control over the entire world is a prominent example of what its inventor believed was a geopolitical constant (Mackinder, 1904; see also Ratzel, 1903). Other writers emphasized that although geography, and especially topography, itself might be constant; man’s relation to it is dynamic. In the works of early geopolitical thinkers, these dynamics sprung from the ways that technologies changed the conditions for social action (For example, see Reclus, 1876–1895). For example, railroads radically altered how geography affected social action since they “shrunk” distances. This technological effect became even more pronounced with the invention of aeroplanes, which not only made man faster, and thus space more compressed, but also allowed humans to circumvent territory that earlier would have been difficult, daunting or even impossible to traverse. Also, technologies such as the increasingly sophisticated irrigation systems or drainage have completely transformed areas that were previously hostile to agriculture.

In a kind of feedback loop, each new technological innovation that has affected how geography impacts on human society has in turn set new conditions for how geography influences social action. New technologies also create new interfaces between societies and climate, buffering possibilities and vulnerabilities.¹ Railroads become vulnerable to heat waves and aircraft are also affected by the weather. We are now facing the ultimate feedback loop in relation to how technological changes, through changes in the climate, affect natural systems such as the meteorological (weather) systems, but also eco systems, with changes in the interaction between different species of plants and animal species as well as shifts in the hydrological systems with changing currents, temperatures and run-offs in larger and smaller natural bodies of water. Changes in the natural systems in turn set new conditions for social action, but these changes are themselves mediated through existing economic, political and social systems which can be affected by the geological and geographic setting. This is dealt with more in the next section.

The effects of climate change on social action

The current climate change is not the first in Earth’s history and human societies have been affected before. A number of articles have been written about the impact on European societies during the “little ice age” between 1400 and 1700. Some scholars believe that changes in the climate were ultimately responsible for a range of adverse impacts, ranging from the abandonment of Norse settlements in Greenland, the spawning of witch hunts, to social disruption due to failing harvests, which in turn led to sharply rising prices and outright starvation (Behringer, 1999; Fagan, 2000; Pfister & Brázdil, 2006, pp. 4–5).

However, economic, political, religious, and technological contexts have to be taken into account when drawing parallels between the effects of climate changes in the past and what we might expect in the future. Pre-modern agricultural societies lacked many of the “buffers” that today can take the edge of sudden, adverse natural effects. Industrial societies possess such “buffers” and agricultural societies are today, in some way or another, connected to the industrial societies that can help them mitigate natural effects, for example through foreign aid. We can conclude that events in natural systems never impact upon human societies in an unmediated way; they are always mediated by existing economic, political, social and technological systems (Haldén, 2007). Mediation takes place in two ways: (1) Through “buffering” by economic and technological systems, which has been discussed above. (2) Through interpretation, which takes place through intersubjective (re)framing via domestic and international political systems.

An example of how modern society and the world market have created buffers between social and natural systems in the developed world is the fact that the dwindling stock of cod has not significantly affected Baltic Sea societies. Industries and industrialized agriculture in the Baltic Sea Region have severely polluted and even destroyed many of the local eco-systems. Large parts of the seabed are now dead as a result of oxygen deprivation in the Baltic Sea, in turn caused by the high levels of nitrogen and other pollutants that have been emitted from farms around the Baltic Sea. Dead seabeds in combination with over-fishing have caused many fish populations to collapse (Lindegren, Möllmann, Nielsen, & Stenseth, 2009; Österblom et al., 2007). For centuries, cod has been an important source of nourishment and income around the Baltic Sea. Today, cod populations have dwindled catastrophically. However, the populations in the Baltic Sea Region no longer depend on cod like they used to, because they can buy fish from other seas and food from other regions. They also have other sources of income, and their food comes to a larger extent from industrialized farms that, in turn, contributed in the first place to the near-extinction of cod in the Baltic Sea. In other words, the disappearance of cod does not affect Baltic Sea societies directly, because this natural event is buffered by economic systems – the world market and diversified national economies – and by technological systems, notably a more efficient agriculture and animal husbandry. If these buffers were to shrink, for example due to a breakdown in the world market for food, or because of problems with the technologies that sustain industrialized food production, then the populations around the Baltic Sea would be more affected and worse off by the disappearance of the cod.

Two contrasting hypothetical scenarios can illustrate the differences in impact when climate change effects of different degrees take place in very different international political contexts. In the late nineteenth-century world, dominated by a handful of European empires, the United States and Japan, the dominant trends in international politics were a combination of inter-imperial rivalry, zero-sum balance of power dynamics, increasingly bellicose nationalism, and colonial subjugation. If climate change effects take place in such a world, then catastrophic effects on one or more of the dependencies of say, France, would mobilize that country to strive for compensations in other areas and its rivals, say the nineteenth-century Germany, might seize the opportunity to strike a blow against the weakened foe.

By contrast, in an alternative scenario of a less tense international system resembling the benign multilateral liberalism under the United States’ hegemony of the 1990s, the international political system is more likely to respond to natural disasters with the pooling of resources and collaboration, rather than competition. Examples include the donor conferences and delivery of development aid that we have seen in past years, sometimes even supplied by the military of another country in a benign act of support to another country in need. Furthermore, in Indonesia for example, the tsunami catastrophe acted as a catalyst for peace talks between a local rebel movement, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government (Gaillard, Clavé, & Kelman, 2008). An enabling condition making possible such a response to a natural disaster was the democratization of the country at the end of the Cold War. If a similar natural catastrophe took place in a hypothetical nineteenth century marked by colonial expansion and Great Power rivalry, we can imagine foreign Great Powers arriving on the scene not with the intention of helping with disaster management and emergency relief but with the intention of establishing a protectorate which could eventually be incorporated and brought under the Great Power’s control.

These two ideal types of systems sketched out here – “balance of power system” and “unipolar multilateralism” – are by no means exhaustive of the range of international systems that are conceivable, but the contrast between these two ideal types and their potential consequences illustrate in how far political systems can mediate the effects of climate change. At the beginning of the twenty-first century we see in the Baltic Sea Region an international system characterized by a coalition of countries – the EU member states (and Norway) – on the one hand, and a country whose attitude towards this coalition ranges between sceptical and hostile. Furthermore, under the Trump administration, the US commitment to European security does not seem to be as solid as during the Cold War. In addition, the apparent willingness of President Trump to accommodate Russian security interests is also likely to have effects on security in the Baltic Sea Region.² The situation is not as hostile as it was during the Cold War, but it is also more fluid. If one or several countries in the region are hit by a natural disaster, not just the domestic priorities, but also the level of hostility or readiness to cooperate between Russia and the EU’s member states can become decisive for how well the affected populations are able to deal with the impact.

Political responses to climate change

There are two main, desirable political responses to climate change that have an effect on social action. The first is mitigation, reducing climate change by reducing CO₂-emissions. The countries of the Baltic Sea Region differ substantially with regard to their willingness to combat climate change. While the EU, to which all littoral states except Russia (and Norway) belong, is a leader on climate change, Russia has been reluctant to sign the Paris Climate agreement (Schreurs & Tiberghien, 2007). Notably, on 1 June 2017 president Donald Trump initiated the process toward taking the United States out of that agreement. The second response to climate change is adaptation. A wide variety of tasks can be undertaken by decision-makers to help societies adjust to face the changes in the natural systems. Such tasks can range from crisis and disaster management to large-scale changes in, e.g. the methods used in agriculture in order to increase resilience (see Fornstedt, 2001; see also Porfiri, 2001, for an overview of cooperation mechanisms for disaster management that developed in the Baltic Sea Region after the end of the Cold War; see IPCC, 2014a, for the state of the art in suggested mitigation efforts; see IPCC, 2014b, for the corresponding source concerning adaptation).

There are, of course, other possible forms of adaptation to climate change effects that gravitate around themes of classical German geopolitics, namely the conception that states exist in a condition of zero-sum competition or, in Thomas Hobbes (1997) phrase, adopt a “gladiatorial stance” vis-à-vis each other. It is possible that, given certain circumstances, policy-makers could start to view the destruction of their national territories and their resources in ways that resemble one of the most prominent and infamous thinkers of pre-World War II geopolitics, Karl Haufhofer. From his perspective, the effects of climate change would equal the reduction of their Lebensraum and thus pose a practical problem that has to be compensated by conquering the Lebensraum of others (see Haushofer, Obst, Lautensach, & Maull, 1928; Herwig, 1999).³ As Tuyushka (in this Forum) argues, the Russian regime’s approach to relations with the “West” suggests that such an antagonistic development could be possible even in the Baltic Sea Region.

In concrete terms, we can imagine that climate change effects could, under certain domestic and international circumstances, lead to expansionist state behaviour, perhaps even inter-state conflict. If climate change causes enough damage to valuable land, e.g. agricultural land or land suited to large industries, that cannot be compensated through the world economy, e.g. through imports or outsourcing, then the possession and acquisition of land would once more become a valuable resource, perhaps so valuable that it is worth fighting for. This would, in theoretical terms, amount to impacts that exceed the buffering capacity of a society in such a way that interpretative choices are narrowed down into a particular framework and geopolitical antagonism may result.

Indeed, the effects of climate change on political systems are shaped to a large extent by the interpretative choices that the peoples and leaders of a country make. Such choices are, in turn, affected by the type of domestic and international systems that prevail at any particular point in time. Regime type will probably matter in how climate change effects are interpreted in the Baltic Sea Region. In a democratic country with a strong civil society and accountable leaders, climate change effects may lead to powerful pressures on the government to act and adapt to these changes through peaceful means. In an undemocratic country, characterized by state-sponsored nationalism, the problems caused by ongoing climate change as well as the fears induced by potential climate change may tempt the leadership to deflect discontent and criticism with foreign conflicts – in addition to increasing the need to seek compensation from and control over other countries’ land.

The relations between peoples and leaders of a country and the effects on climate change in the Baltic Sea Region are, of course, also conditioned by a large number of external factors, not least the kind of relations the leaders and peoples of the Baltic Sea states have, or want to have, with their neighbours today. At the same time, it matters also what kind of relations they expect to have with their neighbours in the future.⁴ We may think about three ideal type interpretations regarding these relationships between leaders and peoples, within and between states.

The first interpretation would stress that climate change effects threaten human security. These threats call for crisis and disaster management between states and beyond state borders. The third interpretation regards and treats climate change as an international human problem that calls for co-operation between states and peoples. Both of these interpretations would entail increased levels of cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region and a greater willingness to work across borders to the mutual benefit of peoples and states. The third interpretation, in contrast, is that climate change threatens and weakens a country in relation to its neighbours. If the leadership of one or several countries in the Baltic Sea Region perceives that the country has to be protected and, if need be, compensated for any loss of territory and power elsewhere, the conditions are created for a geopolitical clash. This interpretation of the effects of climate change in one or several countries in the Baltic Sea area could ultimately result in inter-state conflict, lead to a redrawing of territorial borders and challenge the political order not just in the broader region, but perhaps even have an impact on the existing global order. In short, depending upon the kind of interpretation of climate change effects that the political actors adopt, climate change could impact quite dramatically on politics in the Baltic Sea Region.

Climate change effects in the Baltic Sea Region

Currently, the Baltic Sea Region is characterized by very variable weather conditions partly because of its north–south extension, partly because of its location in the northern hemisphere (Von Storch et al., 2015, p. 4). Weather patterns are largely controlled by global patterns, but due to the shape of the Baltic Sea, its character as a semi-closed body of water and due to land uplift, local conditions are also influential. In a long-term perspective, the Baltic Sea Region has had a dynamic climate history. During the younger Neolithic and Bronze Age eras (c.5500–3500 BCE), the climate was much warmer with summer temperatures between 1.0°C and 3.5°C higher than today. Although temperatures have dropped since then, there has been considerable variation in more recent years. Between 900 and 1350 AD, the region experienced the “Medieval Warm Period” (Hughes & Diaz, 1994). It was then succeeded by the “little ice age” that lasted between c. 1400 and 1800 (see Matthews & Briffa, 2005, for a more critical voice). During this period, mean temperatures were lower and weather variation was greater (Von Storch et al., 2015).

What is significant about current climate change is that it is occurring more rapidly, which means that it is much more difficult for ecosystems and for societies to adapt. What then, are the likely climate change effects in the Baltic Sea Region in the twenty-first century? In trying to ascertain likely or even probable effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea Region we have to take into account the combination of changes in natural systems and likely future political developments that can affect also social (inter)actions.

There are a number of changes in the natural systems that are worth considering. Turning first to effects on the sea, geopolitics in the Baltic Sea Region is likely to be influenced in two ways. In the shorter timeframe, low-lying parts of coastal regions will experience temporary flooding more frequently, caused by a combination of rising sea-levels and greater frequency and severity of storm surges. Storm surges are common in the Baltic Sea, with the eastern parts being more exposed than the western ones. Historically St. Petersburg has been prone to catastrophic flooding and storm surges. To protect the city, a huge dam was built that, according to the authorities, will be able to hold back a 5 m. increase in water levels (Hünicke et al., 2015, pp. 170–172; see also Reuters, 2011). Flooding will cause great costs as well as structural damage to residential areas, business areas and infrastructure. Even if the climate change effects can be mitigated, and the consequences are weaker, these damaging developments are still likely to occur. In the high-impact scenarios of climate change, inundation, i.e. permanent land-loss, in heavily populated areas of littoral and coastal cities, is likely.⁵ In the medium term, increased precipitation, which is projected in the entire Baltic Sea Region, will cause problems for wastewater management as well as for reserves of drinking water (Deppisch, Sirkku, Holger, & Richter, 2015, pp. 413–414).

In the very long-term and especially in scenarios of strong, unmitigated climate change, a large melt-off of polar ice caps is to be expected. As a result, the topography of all littoral areas will be altered. That, however, is expected to occur only after several centuries. In Russia, beyond the Baltic Sea Region, we are seeing drastic effects of climate change already today. One example is the thawing permafrost in the Arctic regions. For Russia this is going to present problems since towns, roads, oilfields, and airfields and other installations are built on the once permanently frozen, but now thawing ground, buildings and other structures are cracking and collapsing (see Luhn, 2016). In the short term, this process brings severe economic losses and costs; in the long term, it might impair Russia’s ability to use the Arctic as a place of habitation, natural resource extraction and strategic power projection (see Persson, 2016, for an overview of military installations and bases in the Russian Arctic).

In the future, the flooding of one coastal city, say Borgå/Porvoo in Finland with a population of around 50,000 may not have much of an impact. Frequent, severe flooding of all coastal cities in the Baltic Sea Region, including the capitals, would on the other hand create lasting impacts that would certainly enter and perhaps alter political calculi. Sea-level rise is projected to be greater in the southern Baltic Sea, which puts a number of coastal cities like Gdansk or Kaliningrad at risk. In particular the ports, industries, transportation networks, water systems and energy infrastructure are vulnerable (Deppisch et al., 2015, pp. 412–413).

In areas of the Baltic Sea Region where the population is directly or indirectly involved in agriculture, climate change is already likely to have an impact. In a future characterized by moderate climate change, the economic and technological systems that the agricultural sector is dependent on (both domestic and international) may be able to buffer the effects of such changes. Governments can, for example, buy grain from other countries to offset shortages, and try and compensate farmers for their losses. In a future characterized by strong climate change, the buffering systems might become exhausted. For example, the government’s demand for agricultural products on the world market could exceed supply. A lack of funds, or different political priorities can also have a detrimental effect on the buffering ability, but also an undersupply on the world market due to protectionist governments keeping their agricultural products to themselves. In Russia, for example, we have seen already the disruptive domestic impact of the decision to impose an import embargo on agricultural products from EU and other states in retaliation against the sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity (Fischer, 2014). Neoliberal policies, globalization and the shift in logistics from stockpiling to just-in-time delivery systems (the Toyota model) have also made advanced societies (such as the Nordic ones) more vulnerable to disruptions in the world market for food. A future where climate change effects disrupt agricultural production in major exporting countries as well as transports is likely to have negative effects on social and perhaps international stability.

It is difficult to accurately sketch trajectories into the future based on the current state of affairs, but it is possible to illustrative potential developments and their consequences from the perspective of ideal types of international systems. If, in the future, the Baltic Sea Region were to be characterized by multilateral co-operation, democratic governments, and what Alexander Wendt calls a Kantian international system, we can expect a cooperative approach by political leaders. Flooding disasters that are likely to befall the region’s coastal cities are in that context likely to be interpreted as natural disasters that have to be met with national and regional civilian crisis management (Wendt, 1999). Indeed, such natural disasters might promote even further regional co-operation and institution building and perhaps pooling of sovereignty in the Baltic Sea Region. However, in the alternative scenario, if the situation in the Baltic Sea Region is tense, characterized by rivalry and enmity – what Alexander Wendt would call a Hobbesian international system – then effects would be mediated by political actions that promote national – not common – interests through a zero-sum competition in (and beyond) the region. In the open international political arena many different factors and developments interact with the changes in the natural environment, making it difficult to accurately predict the trajectory. However, the way in which climate change scenarios affect human societies does not only depend on interpretation and inter-subjective systems. As mentioned previously, economic and technological “buffering” systems also matter. Another dimension is the severity of climate change. The variation between scenarios of low and high levels of climate change effects is considerable. The major question for future research on climate change and international politics is whether the kind of climate change effects that we can expect in the high scenarios will actually exceed the capacities of buffering systems and, by extension, steer the operation of interpretative systems towards a more narrowly bellicose range of policy options.

Finally, on this issue more than virtually any other the Baltic Sea Region is by no means isolated from the rest of the world. Climate change events that seriously damage the interests, infrastructure, population or resources in territories that are not immediately bordering on the Baltic Sea are also likely to influence developments in the region. One example would be Russia itself: if the country becomes weakened by climate change effects such as the destruction of agricultural land or devastation of the country’s Arctic regions, then we can imagine a “pause” in militarization as the country deals with urgent domestic economic and political problems. Alternatively, more aggressive policies may be pursued by the Russian leadership to deflect domestic tensions and to compensate for the country’s weaknesses. Another example the region’s interconnectedness would be possible negative effects caused by the damages to agriculture in food-exporting regions of the world on the economies and the provision of foodstuffs to the import-dependent open economies of Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

What is important to bear in mind, however, is that the constitutive factor that determines to a large extent the shape such actions may take will be the general political climate in the region, not just the meteorological climate. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the political climate – here taken as trends in inter-state relations – is not only a macro-structure that constitutively influences what actions that decision-makers may take. It is also something that decision-makers themselves influence. Despite the inevitable changes in the natural environment, geopolitical conflict could certainly be avoided. If natural disasters were to strike one or several countries of the Baltic Sea Region, its neighbours should be ready to provide generous disaster management help and economic assistance. All countries in the region should, ideally, help each other and especially the most affected parts of society adapt to climate change in the years to come. If cooperation was pursued systematically, as Ekengren, for example, suggests and if in the event of major natural catastrophes a climate change oriented Marshall Plan was adopted, then tensions between the Baltic Sea Region states’ governments and their peoples might relax, and relations could be placed on a stable, collaborative footing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Peter Haldén is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Political Science with a specialty in security and strategy and a lecturer in War Studies at the Department of Security, Strategy, and Leadership at the Swedish Defence University. His specialties are the fundamental concepts of social theory, the political use of armed force, state-formation, systems theory, military sociology, organization theory, tribal societies, Eurasian history, international politics, environmental security. Haldén’s research has three pillars: I. The establishment, maintenance and breaking of political and military orders in the long run, ca. 500–2000 in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. II. Elements of military organization (also in the long run). His research has dealt with the rituals, symbols and myths of military units and cultures. III. The military and political consequences of climate change and the Anthropocene (the era in geological history created by mankind).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Armed Forces.

Notes

1 Mankind’s relation to the climate thus resembles Paul Virillio’s comment that every new technology produces the potential for new kinds of accidents (see Virilio, 2007).

2 CNN: “Trump again calls for readmitting Russia to G7, blames Obama for Crimea’s annexation” June 10, 2018 https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/09/politics/trump-russia-g8-press-conference/index.html accessed 20180629.

3 It should be noted that Friedrich Ratzel coined the term “Lebensraum” but Haushofer elaborated upon it (see Smith, 1980). Lebenraum as a concept was popularized in the book Volk ohne Raum (1926) by Hans Grimm.

4 For an analysis of how perceptions of the future affects military action in regard to climate change, see Halden, (2012).

5 I am extrapolating from the findings made by the ASTRA project. For the details of the findings, see http://www.astra-project.org/sites/download/ASTRA_Sea_level_rise_impacts.pdf.